Port Stephens

Wednesday 09th

Port Stephens today and the the temperture rose consistantly all day to about 34deg. Our destination is One Mile Beach at Anna Bay, and as it turns out the site next to last years.

Ross fixed the fridge wiring on the camper yesterday, so the fridge can work on 12v car power whilst we are driving. Ross discovered it wasnt getting any power, and found the wire burnt out. All seems to be working fine again.

We turned off the highway at Forster Tuncurry, to grab some breakfast for Daniel, some supplies ….. and a special coffee from Ross’s most favourite coffee shop in the cosmos; the Forster Jamaica Blue, and he wasn’t let down.

South of Forster is the Booti Booti National Park, one of the largest coastal rain forests in NSW (Ross can read signs) At Seven Mile Beach is a camp ground with direct access to the isolated surf beach. Although there were day parking fees, we didnt bother as we were only stopping to check it out. The camp ground is a huge grass expanse with plenty of room. We checked out the beach and Ross was sold on the place as an oasis. There were basic toilet facilities which even had hot water.

On the way out Ross stopped to check the notice board ……….. (start the evil music) ……… The fees were $14 per adult, $7 per child and $7 per car per day; thats $42 per day. Ross shunted Booti Booti National Park from its short lived top of the list spot.

Ross felt like throwing his now empty, very yummy, Jamaica Blue take away cup out on the ground in protest ………. but put it in the bin instead.

We arrived at Anna Bay and Barb and Daniel headed to the office for Daniel to get his “bike licence”. Daniel had to pass an oral safety test in order to get the tag on the bike that allows him to ride in the park. Daniel was disgusted and outraged that they would dare ask some ridiculous questions just to ride his bike. He was not amused one little bit.

After camp was set, we headed to the beach to find it was low tide and flat. Too hot for jerking around, a quick decision to make a bee line straight to the pool for the rest of the day. Daniel was snorkling around again. It’s great that he loves it; next we’ll be taking him snorkling at a beach.

We had the aircon on again today. The temperture was still hovered around the mid 20’s by the time we went to bed. We opened up all the canvas, but there wasnt a breath of wind and the fan at the other end of the camper wasnt doing too much to help. Daniel as usual slept like a log. The down side to sleeping with all the canvas open is in the morning it lights up very early. The upside is you feel like you’re sleeping outside with only fly wire between Ross’s naked arse. With the neighbours wandering past that would put anyone off their Cornflakes.

Thusday 10th

We plan to make the best of the beach today before the afternoon change comes through. Although the surf right along the NSW coast is non exsistant, we can swim and play in the sand with Daniel.

The beach was nice, but the surf small but fun enough. Daniel used his new wet suit and rode a few waves on the boogie board. For lunch we head to Salamanda Bay which has a shopping centre to grab a few things, as well as lunch

Friday 11th

We headed into town and caught the Rememberance service.

Bit of a lazy aimless day today. Barb bought a fishing licence and some bait and we all headed down to the beach to try Barb’s luck at beach fishing. She caught 2 nice sized whiting. Ross had to clean them and Daniel was facinated by the process. We were all conflicted about the fishing because both Ross and Barb have always drummed into Daniel to be nice to animals and never tease or hurt or annoy them. You could probably imagine how that went down when Ross grabbed the live fish from the bucket and cut their heads off, drove the knife through their bellies and tore out their insides with with his fingers and fed it to the gulls. Many questions followed that tested the cruelty and tolerance rules …. and really, both Ross and Barb had too few answers. The hunter gatherer concept is very difficult to explain to a 5 year old.

He was still very keen to eat the fish, and luckily he seemed to take it in stride and had forgotten all about it by the time we got back

A koala made his presence felt in the park and wandered about despite a small crowd following his every move. Ironically he climbed up a tree over an onsite van that was covered in small Australian flags, which was a bonus and not lost on the half dozen German tourists.

It is Friday today and of course it has to be pizza and Bourbon. It is a religious experience and not even two small freshly caught whitining was going to change that.

Sat 12th

We read about a town called Morpeth which is inland about an hours drive from Nelson Bay, near Maitland. Morpeth seemed on paper to be a little like Echuca both historically and as a historical tourist attraction. The big drawer card for Barb was the promise of traditional sourdough bread baked especially for her. Like Ross and his obsession with good coffee, Barb is equally critical of all sourdoughs placed in front of her.

The Morpeth Sourdough Bakery is a specialty sourdough bakery which is limited to the production of multi award winning sourdough, which people travel many miles to obtain; in our case many, many miles.

The town itself is heritage listed and, like Echuca, was a thriving river port until the early last century; and like Echuca, saw it’s demise with the expansion of the railway. The town is nice with quite a few shops, cafes and a couple of pubs but is very small and restricted to the surviving buildings with not a lot of developement when compared to Echuca.

The sourdough was ………. well, lets just say maybe Barb is comparing her recollection of the illusive sourdough to something quite different. Neither Ross nor Barb could explain why a famous multi award winning sourdough bakery got our loaf wrong !!!! (ha)

As usual, Ross had to check out the Court House Museum. Barb is equally and oppositely disposed to museums, and walked off along the street. Ross was incredibly depressed when he elighted from the museum with the knowledge that a similar manual telephone exchange he manned at one point during his career, was front and centre in a bloody museum. The realisation that items you have used in your life are museum pieces is a difficult feeling to describe. Quite possibly some self medication back at the camper would level out the depression.

One thing that the brilliant Morpeth’ites have managed to get 110%% right was the combination of a grog shop and pizza shop. Simple in it’s absolute brilliance

Back to Anna Bay for Barb to add the other half of the required amount of fish to the stocks in hand, in order to make a decent feed for the family. Unfortunately despite all our combined concentration, hopes and quiet prayers, no further fish were forthcoming. The dilemma ………. who gets a fish finger each, and what the hell else are we going to eat?!!

On the beach whilst Barb fished, Ross and Daniel were running around amusing themselves. Ross noticed a few young guys playing with a football nearby had made some kind of a sand sculpture which was of little interest. Daniel decided he and Ross should run up into the sand dunes above the beach. Thats when Ross discovered the sand sculpture was in fact a giant penis pointing to an equally giant butt. It must have taken hours to build, and was impressive by it’s size and effort.

Art comes in many forms, and if some goose can place his $20,000 cash grant (our tax money) on a plate, call it art and sell it, then a giant sand penis and butt is definately art.

We held off the decision to head south. Anna Bay and the area in general is a lovely part of the world and we wanted to stay as long as the weather was in our favour. According to our caravan park booking, we were to leave Sunday morning, so we decided to leave the decision to the last minute.

Sun 13th

We woke to overcast skies and the knowledge a light drizzle had fallen overnight. The decison was made to head south to Toowoon Bay about 2 hours drive, in the area of The Entrance just south of Newcastle.

The older people camped behind us at Anna Bay seemed to have some kind a tapped keg sitting on the table outside their van

The caravan park had exploded over the weekend with weekenders coming in from, we presume, Newcastle. The park was bursting at the seems with all spare ground occupied. The elaborate tent setups were pretty impressive; large tarps covering multiple tents, some with full size house fridges and communal TV areas.